


multitudes

by quillquiver



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas is so freaking in love with Dean, Cas waxing poetic about the world, Dean is super whipped, Fluff, M/M, Naked Cuddling, and queer history, cas's history, gratuitous use of world history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29775810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quillquiver/pseuds/quillquiver
Summary: “No,” Dean cuts him off, fingertips pressed to his mouth. Cas looks at him curiously. “I mean, that’s cool—the beginning,” he says. “And I want to hear about all of that another time, but… you. I—I wanna know about you.”
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 80





	multitudes

“Tell me something.”

Cas frowns against Dean’s left pec, eyes looking up at him from where he’s laying his head on Dean’s chest. He feels a hand card through his hair and rub at the base of his skull. He hums into the contact like a cat, closing his eyes in contentment as he feels Dean’s unabashed stare. He rolls off of his chest so they’re nose-to-nose, fingers brushing in the space between them as they lay on their sides.

“About what?” Cas asks.

“Anything,” Dean answers. “Before. When you were an angel.”

An angel. Cas feels his heart seize and his wingless back ache, but forces a playful smile to his lips. “You want to hear about dinosaurs and meteors and great cataclysms,” he teases. “I suppose… the beginning was violent, like breaking a bone again and again until it sets right—”

“No,” Dean cuts him off, fingertips pressed to his mouth. Cas looks at him curiously. “I mean, that’s cool—the beginning,” he says. “And I want to hear about all of that another time, but… you. I—I wanna know about you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Like…” Dean’s fingers move to play with Cas’s own, his cheeks ruddy and red. “Where did you go? What did you see?” He bites his lip, brow furrowed as he forces his gaze up. Cas meets his eyes earnestly. “You pulled me from hell, man, but… I don’t know anything about you before that.”

“And you want to?”

“Well, yeah.” Dean rolls his eyes. “I—wanna know everything.”

His cheeks are so red they’ve droned out his freckles, and Cas can’t stop himself from reaching to run his knuckles over the flushed skin. “I don’t remember a lot of it,” he murmurs. “Some of that is Naomi, I’m sure, but—some is also just being human, I think. I’ve been writing it all down, so I don’t forget.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m older than most types of dirt,” Cas says. “It’s a lot to remember.” He pauses, tracing the line of Dean’s clavicle. “I… wasn’t lying when I said you changed me. And everything that came before, all of it, walking along the primordial beach, pushing mountains from the ground, spending time with all things that swam in the sea and walked upon the earth—it’s like they’re half-memories; empty, but given meaning now that I know to appreciate them. That I know how to put feelings to them.” 

Cas frowns. “Angelic love is— _agape._ Steadfast. Absolute. Unconditional. But it doesn’t make any allowance for emotion beyond blind devotion. I didn’t love the sunrise because there was nothing _to_ love; that the sun rises is an incontrovertible fact of the universe. The pinks and oranges on the horizon are the result of refracted light, of which I could see all colours named and unnamed. The sun existed, and it rose, and in it was my father, and that was good.”

Cas looks down at his hands. “I think… I think I always had the potential to become—this. To get here.” He shifts, moving to idly play with the hem of the sheet. “You have to understand, Dean: King David, Solomon’s lover, Delilah, Judith, Bathsheba—they are nothing to you. Achilles wished Patroclus was so lovely of face and pure of heart. I remember thinking, strangely, that such radiance was just for the Righteous Man who will bring about Paradise. And yet for all the beauty I’d seen; gods and goddesses, kings and queens and commoners, the loveliness in every far corner of this world, that— _you_ —were the first time I truly felt splendour. I had never seen a soul shine through a face, like that. And we had been taught obedience above all, but God had surely _lied_ , because… because even twisted and conflicted as you were, you radiated love in all the ways I didn’t know I craved to feel. How was I supposed to pledge myself to an absent father when you were right there? When my own doubts were later echoed in your hands and the steady beat of your heart a hundredfold?

“And it was— _is_ —complicated and confusing and _painful,_ but learning to feel, to disobey, to _love_ ; it has been the greatest honour and privilege of my life. And I know you don’t like… grand declarations,” Cas says quietly. He forces his eyes upwards, swallowing thickly when Dean meets them, his own wide and unflinching. “So please believe me when I say that this isn’t, to me. And I know I’ve told you all of this before, but we’re not dying, now, and you need to know how thankful I am to even just know you—”

Dean surges forward to press their mouths together, reaching over to pull Cas closer. He buries a hand in dark hair and uses the other to cup Cas’s stumbled jaw, pulling away to mutter _Jesus, Cas_ before kissing him again. And again. And again. He pulls away and moves back when Cas chases, a crooked, goofy smile tugging at his mouth. Cas feels himself start to grin in response. “What?” he asks.

“You just—” Dean shakes his head. “You say all this epic crap about me like you didn’t change me, too.” He looks down at their joined hands, frowning as he brushes a thumb over Cas’s knuckles. “I didn’t really have any friends before you. Or not like you, at least. Hunting… you kinda gotta keep people at an arm’s length. And you—y’know, you helped me be myself. Made me brave. So, uh. Thanks. I guess.”

“You’re—welcome,” Cas says haltingly. He can’t stop staring, but he thinks maybe that’s okay. That this instance of overwhelming love and appreciation is the only one where unabashed looking is not a social faux pas. Hesitantly, he leans in. Dean meets him halfway.

They kiss for a good long while, until Dean is pressed back into the mattress and Cas is a useless, warm lump on top of him. What they’re doing can definitely be characterized as swapping spit; their every movement lazy and deep, hands wandering, bodies tangled and moving together as if in a prelude to sex despite the fact that neither of them seem particularly inclined to get there.

“Y’know, you never actually answered my question,” Dean breathes into the bolt of Cas’s jaw.

“Question?” Cas asks faintly.

“Mm. About you. When you were an angel.”

“Ah, my wings were iridescent black,” Cas murmurs humming when Dean makes his way back for a real kiss. “I have—um, _had_ an animal head for every vessel I took.” Dean rolls them over. “The T-Rex was not a scavenger, and they had mating plumage.” Presses sucking kisses to his neck. “I was an advisor to Cleopatra. I waited for Emperor Ai as he cut his sleeve. Brachiosaurs used to sing—”

Dean abruptly pulls away. He sits up, straddling Cas’s waist with a dumbfounded expression on his face. Cas’s brow furrows. “Dean?”

“Sorry, you just—”

He moves as if to dismount and Cas tugs him back down, catching his mouth in another kiss. “I’m responsible for the Silfra Fissure in Iceland,” he continues. “Gabriel created the platypus. Moses had a stutter and was a bad public speaker; Aaron did most of the talking for him.”

“Uh—”

“The Roman Empress Elagabalus once invited, um, a gladiator to the palace because he had an exceptionally large penis, and when he couldn’t please her, she banished him. Her male lover, Hierocles, had given the gladiator something so he wouldn’t become erect.”

Dean snorts and Cas pulls away with a concerned frown. “What—?”

“Nothing,” Dean laughs, the thing caught somewhere between disbelief and joy. “Keep going.”

“Um… Copernicus had an aversion to feet?”

“Is that a question?”

“No, he did.”

Dean grins and kisses him again.


End file.
